The Magic Teabag
by unamuerte
Summary: Mrs Lovett discovers a magic teabag while searching Signor Pirelli's corpse. Sweeney and Mrs Lovett are granted a number of wishes, but will the magic teabag be able to make their dreams come true? Read to find out!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I don't own anything but Pirelli's magic teabag!**

**~The Magic Teabag~**

Sweeney had never liked that kettle very much. It was black and rusty and heavy to begin with, and it always whistled, even when it wasn't boiling. Belting Pirelli over the head with it had been the highlight of its life since he'd first borrowed it from Mrs Lovett's kitchen. It was one less item she could bring up and hassle him with.

Now she was rifling through the dead man's pockets.

"Oh well, waste not, want not."

He saw her stuff Pirelli's burgundy coin purse down her corset.

"Oops, almost forgot the other pocket," she hissed, sticking her hand down his left pocket. "Hallo, wot's this then?"

"Throw it away," Sweeney said, wrinkling his nose distastefully at the smelly old teabag dangling from Mrs Lovett's floury fingers.

"Mr T," she lectured, snatching the teabag away and plopping it in the kettle on the stove, "you just gave a man a one way trip to hell, an' now you're gettin' the jitters over one measly teabag? Heaven 'elp me mister I'll never understand you!"

A hissing whistle erupted over the stove.

"I don't like clowns," Sweeney said, grabbing the kettle off the hot plate.

"Wot clowns?" Mrs Lovett followed her dream husband to the door. "Oh, them clowns."

Two powdered red nosed clowns in orange wigs were juggling in the middle of Fleet Street. A sizeable crowd had sprung up.

Sweeney shut the door firmly before the act could fully commence. "Tea, Mrs Lovett," the barber ordered.

Nellie blushed. She'd forgotten the tea. "Wait there," she said in a fluster, yanking the door open and bursting down the stairs. "Forgot the flamin' cups!"

She flew back seconds later with two stone brown mugs in both hands, bounding half-way up the stairs. By the time she'd reached the top, Mrs Lovett was exhausted.

Sweeney held the door halfway open for her and had already snatched a cup and begun to pour the tea. "You drink first," he said maliciously.

It was her idea to use Pirelli's filthy old teabag. He did not relish the thought of drinking putrid tea, but as he'd been reminded at least fifty times that day, they were fresh out of tea.

"Bottoms up." The baker shrugged, shut her eyes and downed the tea. "Strong stuff," she spluttered, wincing and smacking her hand against her chest.

They waited.

"You don't appear dead," he frowned, unable to decide if that was good or bad.

"No," Mrs Lovett agreed, flopping back in Sweeney's barber chair. "I tell you wot though, Mr T. I'm wiped. Lord knows I wish I had an elevator to climb up all them stairs."

The moment the words left the woman's mouth, an earth-shattering rumble shook Sweeney's barber shop. The mirror fell flat and shattered into tiny pieces on the floor. All Mr Todd's personal items flew off the desk, and barber and baker went sliding across the floorboards toward Sweeney's deadly barber chair.

"The sky's fallin' down!" Mrs Lovett shrieked, flying into the barber's arms and clinging tightly to his leather jacket.

"Bull's wool," Mr T snapped, shoving her aside. He stormed over to the door and nearly ripped it off its hinges. "Mrs Lovett!" he roared.

She staggered outside to the staircase balcony. "Well I'll be…"

They were no longer standing on a staircase. Directly in front of them stood a beautiful old elevator with brass gates and iron fencing sculpted into vine leaves.

"Per'aps we're hallucinatin'," Mrs Lovett suggested.

The barber snorted. "I didn't drink any…"

Their eyes locked in horror.

"The tea!" Sweeney rushed back into the shop and stared at the half-empty kettle for a few moments. "You wished for an elevator," he calculated, "and it came true. Give me the spare cup!" he bellowed.

Mrs Lovett passed it to him silently. "I 'ope you know wot you're doin' love," she sighed.

"_Silence." _Sweeney poured the rest of the kettle's contents into the cup, and drained the dregs.

The baker watched him anxiously as the liquid worked its way down his throat. He didn't even flinch.

"They used to make us drink sea water back in the colony," Mr Todd explained.

"Now what?" Mrs Lovett said nervously, her eyes dancing full of promise. She already had her next wished planned out, and the wish after that…

"Don't say another word," Sweeney said darkly. He took her in suddenly, grabbed her arm and sat her back into the barber chair roughly. "Or I'll pull the lever, got it?"

She nodded dumbly. Tears leaked from her eyes. She knew what he was going to wish before he even said the words.

The barber closed his eyes, and pursed his lips. "I wish I had Lucy and Johanna back," he whispered, pressing the empty teacup to his chest.

*** * ***

**To be continued...**


	2. Elevator to Hell

**~Elevator to Hell~**

"Why isn't anything happening?" Sweeney snapped, opening his eyes.

They waited, barber clinging to his teacup, baker clinging air.

"I suppose," Mrs Lovett said in the silence, "that the wish 'as gotta warm up."

He looked at her as if she were some village idiot, which in another lifetime she may well have been. "Wishes don't "warm up", Mrs Lovett. They _appear._ Like your godforsaken elevator."

They waited some more.

An hour passed on Sweeney's pocket watch. He took to his customary pacing. Mrs Lovett was seated in the barber chair, improvising some sort of work-house tap dance.

"Stop that!" Sweeney said, placing his hand threateningly over the chair's lever.

Her eyes flew wide open like the underside of a Pelican's wings. "You wouldn't dare!"

"I would," he promised, their foreheads almost touching. "Get up!"

"Where we goin'?"

"I don't believe that teabag didn't contain magic mushrooms, Mrs Lovett. You and I are very likely as high as kites right now."

The baker stomped stubbornly to the door. "I'm not imaginin' flyin' elevators Mr T, I don't know 'bout you, but –"

Without warning, she felt her arm twisted back as her partner in crime led her to the stair landing. "Into the lift."

The operating buttons shone brilliantly. He slammed his fist against it, and pushed the lattice iron gates open.

"Wot are you doin' Mr T?"

"What do you _think, _pet? Giving it a test run."

He pushed her in, and jumped after her, as if he were afraid he might fall through the gap and go tumbling straight down to that fiery inferno. Not that Sweeney believed in such things.

"Mr T."

"What?!"

"There's more than one floor…"

"Oh."

The couple found themselves contemplating a series of fifty-one floors. Sweeney Todd's shop was number 37, but that couldn't be correct, for –

"It should be floor number 1, and mine should be ground floor," Mrs Lovett protested.

"Why don't we press "ground floor" then?" Sweeney suggested, feeling the temperature in the elevator rise by several degrees.

She glared at him. "Wot're you a flamin' idiot? Don't you know the legends?"

Sweeney knew only one legend: the one he was making for himself. "No," he said sourly.

"Well," said Mrs Lovett, her voice acquiring that husky whisper reserved for waltzing in shopfronts or relating sad tales of preyed-upon pretty women, "legend has it that thirty years ago, when we wos jus' small children, an extremely rich man came to a poor clockmaker in London and demanded that he build the fanciest elevator ever designed, only it had to have fifty one floors."

The barber screwed up his face. "Why fifty-one?"

"They say the man was very lonely, and went to a fortune teller. This shady woman told him he'd fall in love with his true love on his fifty-first birthday, an' the man was dumb enough to believe her. So he wanted an elevator to remind himself of the prediction. Anyway, they say the elevator is cursed, an' any fool who presses the ground floor button will go straight ter hell."

"That's it?"

"That's it." Mrs Lovett crossed her arms, puckered her lips, and began circling her finger around the buttons like a fly. _Which one to press…_

Sweeney grabbed the finger, and twisted it back. "My turn," he said, reaching past her and stabbing the 36th floor rapidly.

The baker scowled, but it was too late. The elevator churned, buckled, and dropped. "We're gonna die!" she screeched, finding another opportunity to cling to his chest.

Seconds later, the elevator groaned and jerked to a stop.

"If that man owned the elevator, what is it doing here?" Sweeney asked.

"Ferret!"

"I'm not putting up with your shenanigans Mrs Lovett," he warned, but for once –

"It wasn't me," Mrs Lovett said very quietly, staring at the two women turning circles outside Mrs Lovett's Meat Pie Emporium.

"Ferret!" screeched a diry woman in a bonnet.

It was that filthy beggar woman, and pretty little Johanna. Wot were they doing there, and why were they linking arms, talking low? Johanna appeared to be doing most of the "talking".

"What is…." It took several moments for Sweeney to piece together what he saw before him.

"It's your second wish," said Mrs Lovett flatly, stepping out of the elevator like a woman condemned for witchcraft.

Of all the worst possible wishes granted, it was possible that this one was the worst, if two shadows hadn't stepped out of Mrs Mooney's from across the road and begun walking even paced toward Mrs Lovett's shop.

One shadow was tall and stately and grey, the other short and fat and blonde, switching a cane.

The baker sucked in mouthfuls of foggy air. "Beadle Bamford!"

Sweeney Todd sucked in several more. "Judge Turpin!"

*** * ***


	3. Shovels and MerryGoRounds

**A/N: For those of you who have read "The Monkey's Paw," it's a little bit like that =O**

**~Shovels and Merry-go-rounds~**

"Judge Turpin!"

"Beadle Bamford!"

The deadliest man-woman team in London stood contemplating the unlikely forms of Judge and servant-lackey gliding out of the mist like a bad dream.

"It's like a dream," said Sweeney in a choked up voice, finding the pent-up emotions of fifteen years too difficult to express in anything but a cliché.

"Well," came the baker's chirpy voice after an adequate moment of serious silence, "you'd best prepare for your shave-cut-arghh moment," said Mrs Lovett, making a slicing gesture against her throat. She put her arms on the barber's back, ready to propel him into the darkness of the barber shop like a circus master.

"_Wait._" Sweeney smelt a rat when he, well, smelt it. He wondered if killing all those rats in the kitchen hadn't somehow twisted his partner's mind. "What did you mean about my "second wish" exactly?"

"Oh nothin' love, you know wot they say about bakers losin' their marbles after their 'usbands die an' they only 'as rats an' roaches for company -"

He gripped her hand in a vice-like trap. He'd had many years of practice on squeezing coins from the hands of men who refused to pay for haircuts back in that god-forsaken colony. Everyone knew convicts _never_ paid for a shave. "Don't act those money-starved _grisettes_, my pet, I know you far better. That brain of yours is ticking over like a wound-up cuckoo clock. Now _talk." _He squeezed harder. After all, he only had thirty seconds before the Judge and the Fat One came up demanding whatever satisfaction they demanded. And the Judge would be none-too-pleased, seeing Johanna out of her cage.

"Don't be mad love," she puffed and pouted, knowing she had less than ten seconds before her object of desire crunched her bones up better than the meat grinder in the bakehouse, "but you wished for your wife an' child ter come back to you. Surprise!"

Sweeney turned like a man fastened with his neck around a noose. "That isn't Lucy. My Lucy has yellow hair and laughing eyes like the sun. Johanna was just a babe in my arms the last time I -"

The cunning man thought hard.

"See the thing is -" Mrs Lovett chewed her bottom lip. She couldn't bring herself to do it.

He guessed it anyway. _"Lucy was never dead."_

"Bingo, Mr T. Now don't be mad, I did it all for - BLEEDIN' CATFISH MR T!" The baker lifted her broken wrist dangling in the air, courtesy Mr Todd. It looked a bit like one of the limp hands of those dead men dropped down from the trap door. Or a dead white fish. Mrs Lovett knew she wouldn't be able to eat fish again for a long while.

Sweeney looked blackly at her. He didn't take out his razors, because he was in "polite" company. He'd murder her later. He settled for cursing under his breath instead. "Liars, perverts, and blackmailers -"

"Oh my!" said Johanna, seeing the furious man stalk towards her.

Lucy wasn't dead. She was the filthy beggar woman all along. And the girl - his babe, must be this fifteen year old little midget, frail-boned and wispy, insect-birded ward of Judge - "Turpin," he spat, extending his right hand to shake hands with the clearly bewildered Judge.

"What is the meaning of this, Mr Todd?" The Judge was not amused. It was difficult to decipher Beadle Bamford's thoughts, as he was rather busy snorting himself into an early grave.

Not as early, however, as Mrs Lovett's would be.

"I'll be goin' in now love," said Mrs Lovett painfully, hiding her dangling wrist behind her back.

"No," Sweeney growled. "You ought to be _thanked _Mrs Lovett, for rescuing this child from the clutches of the sailor-boy."

Judge Turpin's hackles were immediately raised. "The sailor!?"

"Yes," the barber lied smoothly. "I found this poor, shaken creature wandering around Fleet Street, near out of her wits. This lady raised the alarm, and I ran after the fiend as quick as I could. Your ward sir, is safe and sound."

"You shall be rewarded," said the Judge with a steely eye. "I was thinking of coming for a shave today, but after the events you have just related, I feel it urgent to return Johanna and seek out this deviant."

"Naturally," replied the barber, feeling even worse than when he had first stepped off the Bountiful and heard what had become of his loved ones.

"Oh happy day!" said the Beadle unnecessarily.

Mrs Lovett had Johanna's arms pinned behind her back with her good wrist.

"Please Madam," begged Johanna, "if you have an ounce of sympathy left in your haggard face, release me!"

The baker considered the proposition. If she did, Sweeney would kill her. If she didn't, he was going to kill her later on regardless. "Maybe I'll get another wish," she said aloud.

"Ferret!" shrieked the beggar woman again.

Sweeney felt repulsed by the entire business. He felt used and cheated by both Pirelli and his teabag. Mrs Lovett had had her wish granted, but what about _his _wish? Lucy had not been returned to him. Instead there was this foul-mouthed bonneted thing, trying to climb up the drain-pipe to "get insy-winsy spider out" or whatever nonsense she was garbling. If _only _he had a second wish.

Funnily enough, Mrs Lovett was wishing for the same thing. "I wish Sweeney Todd wos in love wif me an' we wos happily married by the sea," she blurted, careful this time to formulate her wish carefully, in light of Mr Todd's last blunder.

"You've done it this time, _pet!" _The barber roared, drawing out his twin blades.

"Devil!" shouted Judge Turpin, snatching past Mrs Lovett to reach Johanna. He yanked on the woman's broken wrist by accident.

She slapped him automatically with her free hand, and the Judge stumbled back, his entire 1.8 metre frame tumbling into his pint-sized servant.

"You're all mad!" screamed Johanna, taking off with her skirts trailing in the mud.

"Mongoose!" said the beggar woman, lifting her skirts in the exact same manner and chasing after her daughter.

It was a bit like a merry-go-round.

The beggar woman running after Joanna, Sweeney running after the beggar woman and Joanna, Mrs Lovett running after Sweeney, Judge Turpin running after Sweeney and Johanna, Beadle Bamford running after Judge Turpin.

"Blimey, all this runnin' 'as me knees done in!" Mrs Lovett stopped and panted.

"Mrs Lovett?" Sweeney Todd had also stopped running, and was looking at her rather oddly.

"Yes, Mr T?" she asked hopefully.

"Do we have any shovels?" He began marching her back to the pie shop.

The rest of the running race turned the corner of Fleet Street. He didn't seem to care about Lucy and Johanna - for the moment.

Maybe this was a sign? "I think so," she said uncertainly. "Why?"

"So I can dig a grave, and bury you in it."

*** * ***


	4. Non Compos Mentis

**A/N: SO so so so sorry this is late!!! It's been a bit busy lately, but I haven't forgotten to drink my tea!**

**~Non Compos Mentis~**

"You won't need to bury me after all, Mr T," said Mrs Lovett after twenty minutes of walking back to the pie shop. He wasn't making love-dovey eyes at her. He wasn't sweeping her off her feet. He wasn't shouting for a coach to drive them at neck-breaking speed to the sea.

He was just tapping the ground with his right foot, muttering something about "dead men" and "burying himself alive." Unless this was Mr Todd's way of being romantic –

"The tea has worn off," Sweeney Todd concluded, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Oh well," said Mrs Lovett far too casually, kicking a spare pebble on the road.

"What now?" Sweeney asked, slowing their pace as the approached the familiar shop.

Her eyes lit up. "Wanna get drunk?"

Sweeney frowned. Normally he didn't approve of such gluttonous vices, but considering that both their dreams had been dashed in the space of one miserable afternoon, the thought of drinking himself into an early grave seemed strangely enticing.

"I'll get the gin," the baker insisted, sensing Sweeney was at his most vulnerable. _Ah ha_, she realised, racing up the stairs like a girl going to fetch her skipping rope. Maybe I can settle for second best. It was her speciality, anyway, settling for seconds. Lucy had Ben, so wasn't it right Nellie had Sweeney, half compos mentis or not? She had the idea that a gin-fuelled romp with a repressed barber was bound to be as satisfying as a honey-moon picnic on the beach under the stars…

"A _second_ teabag!" Sweeney bellowed unexpectedly, tearing up the stairs after her.

"Wot?" She turned at the door, just as he barrelled past her and knocked her winded on the dusty floorboards.

"A second teabag," he continued to mutter, lifting the trunk where they'd stuffed Pirelli's body. He began rifling feverishly through the dead man's clothes.

Suddenly Mrs Lovett realised what he was on about, and joined in the search. "Big beefy man like Pirelli couldn't just 'ave one ruddy teabag," she wheezed, feeling up the sleeve of the bloody man's arm. "One more teabag, an' I can make my wish!"

"I think you mean _my _wish, Mrs Lovett," snarled Sweeney, slapping her arm away from Pirelli's arm. "You had your wish, now it's _my turn."_

"An' Orphans live past their sixth birthdays!" snorted Mrs Lovett, elbowing him in the side.

Sweeney Todd was a very weak man except for his exceptionally toned hand muscles, and the properly placed nudge was enough to cause him to crumple to the floor.

_~Twenty minutes later~_

"Well, that solved that," said the baker glumly, staring at the dead man's naked body. Clothes were strewn around the barber shop, but nothing had revealed a second magic teabag.

Predictably, the demon barber had gone to pieces. "Another pointless exercise!" he vented, throwing an oil lamp at the already violated mirror.

"I suppose I'll get the blame," his companion muttered, rolling her eyes at the ceiling.

"What was that?" Nothing escaped Sweeney's sweeping stare. "It was your idea, my pet, to boil that teabag -"

"I only thought some good would come of it!"

Downstairs, Toby was busy making explosive experiments in Mrs Lovett's bathtub.

"So that's where me gin got to," Mrs Lovett observed.

"Sit down my dove," instructed the barber, pushing her forward with her shoulders.

She sat obediently, ignoring the flaming look in his eyes. She was too busy concentrating on the ashen skin, the dusty hair and practiced fingers.

"Be very quiet," Sweeney continued, swiftly drawing out his razor and holding it up to their gazes.

"I hope you isn't intendin' to 'urt me Mr T, becoz I really don't think either of us would like that."

"You mightn't, my pet, but I might," he confessed, lifting the blade to her throat.

"You aren't goin' to be intimate wif me, are you, Mr T?" said Mrs Lovett at last, her eyes widening with that frightful delight that Sweeney loved to see on his victim's faces.

"Sorry to disappoint you, Mrs Lovett, but brunettes happen to be very physically unattractive to me."

She shut her eyes, hoping the exercise would be swiftly done. Even at her moment of death, Mrs Lovett couldn't resist a final quip: "Oh that's right, I forgot you 'as a fetish for blondes. Just like that ole Judge T –"

"I'm nothing like the Judge!" Sweeney shrieked, bringing the blade across her throat at the exact moment the baker grasped the lever on the barber chair, and pulled.

"FLAMIN' JESUS!" Mrs Lovett screamed all the way to the bottom.

"Delightful," said Sweeney Todd, bending his neck down the trapdoor to view the crumpled doll body of his former accomplice.

"I'm not dead!" shouted Mrs Lovett angrily from below, "so you can stop your gloating!"

"I'm not gloating," Sweeney growled, "merely peeping," but he got no further in his explanation.

No sooner than he had craned his neck to argue some more with Mrs Lovett, than he lost his footing and went tumbling down to join her, right in the middle of the churning, chopping, bakehouse sea.

"It came true!" sang Mrs Lovett, paddling about merrily in the dark waters that lapped around the furnace and buoyed them about the room. She looked at the barber's body, sinking down into the depths, with a crestfallen face. "Well, part o' me wish, anyhow."

"Lucy!" Sweeney gasped, surfacing from the waves.

**~*~*~*~**


	5. Rings and Things

**A/N: Thanks to Emi1yOreo, Sakura Katana, AngelofDarkness1605, lilaclila, F8WUZL8, Sa Satin Amoureux, It'sOnlyForever.x, and linalove for reviewing. You know I suck at review replies. I hope if you've seen Alice in Wonderland that you enjoyed it! I think I'm the only one who hasn't seen it yet? **

"Mr T, stop drinking the sea water!" The baker could scold even in a crisis. "You don't know where it's been!"

Not many London women knew how to swim. Mrs Lovett, on the other hand, was the exception. Ever since Albert had tried to drown her in the bath tub fully clothed, she knew how to hold her breath for two minutes and twenty seconds.

While the mighty demon barber spluttered about on the surface like a drunken sperm whale, the baker sunk down into the bakehouse abyss. Her heavy skirts weighed her down like lead, and the moment she was swallowed up by the churning sea, Nellie regretted drinking that bloody teabag. Under water, she could see the glowing fire from the furnace in the room. The heat boiled the water, and Mrs Lovett knew she had a window of about sixty seconds before the fire and water drowned and burnt them both. Unable to scold him underwater, Mrs Lovett dragged her sinking body toward his waist. She clawed his sides, until she found her saviour – the razor. Once she'd ripped it from him and shorn off her skirts, she shot up easily towards the surface.

"Shrunken heads!" Sweeney shrieked, thrashing his arms around.

"Headless heads," Mrs Lovett said, choking, as finger bones and ribcages floated about the surface.

They both had a point. The boiling ocean was shrinking the rotting flesh, and Mrs Lovett had always finished skinning the bodies by decapitating the heads.

"Swim for the door!' Her words were swallowed by the blood and sea water, but Sweeney got the general idea. He threw his shoulders around Mrs Lovett's neck and clung to her as if he were Johanna's dusty old doll upstairs. Mrs Lovett was on the verge of drowning, if it could be said there _was _a verge. Falling and choking and vomiting up broiling waves qualified as full on drowning for her.

"The stairs!" Sweeney roared, rolling away from her back and scrabbling for the bakehouse steps. Mrs Lovett didn't remember any stairs on the inside of the door, but she was so overjoyed to see them that she might have married _them _instead of Sweeney. Stairs after all, might prove more useful.

"Still want to go to the sea, Mrs Lovett?" Sweeney said, when they had finished gasping on the edge of the steps. The sea still rocked around with a violence that matched the barber's temper tantrums.

"Not if the weather's anything like your moods," Mrs Lovett snapped, dragging herself to her feet and scrabbling for the door.

"Mrs Lovett –"

"You got us inter this mess," she whirled, eyes ablaze. "If you hadn't tried ter kill me, the sea might've liked us."

This notion set the barber aflame. "_Liked us? _The sea doesn't have a BRAIN, my pet, not unlike…." He trailed off, mainly because he had lost his razors in the water.

But Mrs Lovett didn't lose his drift. "Not unlike _me, _you mean?" she accused.

They both yanked on the iron door handle. The door creaked open, and the pair ran for the stairs at the same time. The ocean rushed after them and carried them all the way up to Mrs Lovett's pie shop.

"Five minutes," droned a plump faced holy man seated at the pie shop table, fingers drumming in expectation.

"I don't believe we ordered priest," Sweeney said, turning darkly to Mrs Lovett.

"No, we did," the baker said timidly. "I wished that –"

"I have five minutes to marry you," the priest said, holding a bible up in his hands.

There were certain items and certain types of people that Sweeney could not stand.

"If you don't marry us within the next ten seconds," the barber ordered, picking up Mrs Lovett's spare rolling pin and pointing it at the priest like a duelling sword, "I'll _mar _you."

"I don't mind, actually," the priest said, coming forward calmly. "I'm always looking forward to new cuts." He smiled at them both, as if he knew intuitively their appreciation of the Art of Skinning.

All in all, Mrs Lovett thought this man was balmier than even Mr Todd.

"Balmy weather, we're having, wouldn't you agree?" the priest continued amiably, as if he'd never been threatened by a cooking utensil in his life.

"Mr Priest sir," bellowed Toby, bolting out from the parlour room, "I've got them rings!" He held the ring box high like the sword Excalibur.

If Toby hadn't been a child alcoholic, he might have made business entrepreneur. As it stood, belt buckles were the only items he could find. His head ached, he was too afraid to steal Sweeney's ring from the barber shop, and so he'd switched them from an old belt under Mrs Lovett's bed.

"Give them here!" Sweeney snatched the belt buckles and shoved one on his ring finger, and one on the baker's. He had a Plan, you see.

"Well?" he sneered at the priest. "I do!"

This was a far cry from how Mrs Lovett had imagined, although she supposed it was a good thing no one was doing any crying or screaming just then. Still, she wasn't sure she liked this new eager Sweeney. "I do," she said breathlessly, "but…" Her curls were dead, her face blood smeared, and her bright red bloomers on display for the world to see...

"Too late, you're married!" The priest produced a mouldy certificate, stamped it, slapped it on the flour stained counter and dashed out the door. "Gin time!" they heard him singing.

"Why did you marry me?" Mrs Lovett demanded, when they were left standing in silence in the middle of the sopping floor.

"I made a split-second decision, my pet. After much careful thought and consideration, seeing as I haven't been able to rid you by murdering you, I'm going to have you committed instead."

"What's committed mean?" Toby piped up.

"It means Mrs Lovett will be put in the mad house and gets to wear a yellow bib every time they feed her her medicine," Sweeney said, with a horrible smile.

**~*~*~*~**


	6. Regression

**~Regression~**

"Committed?!" Toby took a step between the feuding couple.

"You wouldn't dare do that ter me!" Mrs Lovett said defiantly. She expected sadism, violence, cruelty and insensitivity; not the sort of skulduggery which Judge Turpin indulged in.

"I can do anything I like Mrs Lovett," beamed Sweeney Todd too toothily, "now that we're married."

She backed away, wondering if the china pot in the parlour containing Albert's ashes would come in handy. It had finally happened. Judge Turpin's soul had possessed Mr Todd's brain. "Come 'ere Toby love," Mrs Lovett urged. "It's not safe no more. Mr T's been cracked by an evil spirit."

"Speak of the devil, mum!" The boy pointed to the door.

"There's been a breach of justice here!" Judge Turpin bellowed as the trio met him at the door.

"Injustice!" the Beadle echoed, with a cacophonous snort. White powder sprayed across the pie shop windows.

Barber and baker looked nonplussed. "Of what sort?"

"You sir, are a bigamist!" The Judge produced two pieces of paper, and slapped them on the counter. "You are married to two women, and for that I have the power to arrest you. "Not only that," he went on, eyes barely concealing his deep delight, "you are that one villainous _Benjamin Barker_, returned to haunt London."

"I think he means you're dead," Mrs Lovett whispered.

"I will be," said the crafty barber, "unless I kill him first."

Mrs Lovett handed him her meat cleaver lying on the table. "If you're goin' ter bloody up me kitchen floor, Mr Todd, you might as well use somethin' decent."

"Thank you, my pet." It truly was thoughtful of her to think ahead. She may prove useful yet. No need to throttle her so soon. Just as he was about to wrap the cleaver around the Judge's gnarly throat, Sweeney had another epiphany. Why not deliver the ultimate punishment, one that not even the great Judge had the power to deliver? After all, the teabag had worked before...

"I wish Judge Turpin had never been born!"

*** * ***

Judge Turpin was not in the least bit fazed by this admission. Dead men were always telling him to hang in hell. Men who were about to be hung. Dead men. They were all the same anyway. Their cries would always fall on deaf ears. Only this time, not even he had the power to alter the magic of the teabag.

"He's gettin' quite small," Mrs Lovett observed, watching the Judge rapidly descend into the folds of his clothes faster than a sewer rat scurrying off into the drains.

If they strained their ears hard enough, a small low voice could be heard begging from under the clothes: "pray don't return me to my mother's womb!"

"Not dead enough," said Sweeney viciously, and lifted his boot in the same hovering manner as a Roman Emperor's thumb before deciding the guilty verdict, and slammed it down hard over the form of the disappearing Judge.

"Someone's snuffed out the lights! Where are we?" Mrs Lovett yelped in the midst of Judge Turpin's un-birth.

"In oblivion, I shouldn't wonder," Sweeney said mildly, shrugging his shoulders impassively in the black void.

It was very dark. Barber and baker gripped hands. A flashing light descended on the bakehouse. Mrs Lovett wondered if this was a sign that the little men from Mars were finally coming down from space to colonise London. She had read all about it in _The War of the World_, after all. Sweeney, on the other hand, was rhapsodising over the fact that his silver streak had suddenly disappeared. "No torture lines," he beamed, patting his arms against his pants excitedly.

"Do I look twenty years young too?" his partner-in-crime wanted to know.

Naturally, he ignored her.

As the light cleared, a vision in white appeared. It was her! The angel!

"Ah! There she is!" Sweeney bowled over Mrs Lovett in an attempt to tackle a young, sane, clean-smelling Lucy.

"Hello Ben," she said sweetly, and immediately inquired after Mrs Barker's health.

"Fine, never better," laughed Nellie, with a twinkle in her eye.

"You can't ask about your own health," Sweeney Todd spat, missing the point. "You _are _Mrs Barker." He felt the old familiar temper pulsing up through his temples.

"Another joke," Lucy said amiably, rolling her eyes. "I danced with you once, at the Fleet Street ball, do you remember?"

Even as "Ben", Sweeney found that he couldn't recall any of his old memories. Thwarted again.

"Well," Lucy continued, "that's in the past now. "I'm one Mrs Bamford, as of today." She displayed a beautiful pearl and diamond ring, and Mrs Lovett made the appropriate gushing noises. "He's been appointed Judge, you know."

"I'm sure he'll_ execute_ justice fairly," Mrs Lovett winked, with an emphasis on "execute."

Sweeney shot daggers at the new Mrs Barker. He drank in his dazzling blonde wife. A mirage, quite possibly. A hallucination even. A ghost – if they were all dead. "Care to join us for dinner?" he spluttered. "You and – the –"

He felt two white fingers pinch him discreetly in the side. "Judge Bamford." The very sound of a title such as that attached to the Beadle's name sent his hands itching for his razors. Where were they?

"So it's true," Mrs Lovett said the minute Lucy Barker was out of earshot and wandering amidst the petunias in the flower shop. "Judge Turpin's kicked the bucket!"

**~*~*~*~**

******A/N: One more chapter to go! Whoo-hoo!**** Huge apology for not reviewing for a while. I do plan to read your stuff. I'm actually itching to do so. I get a week and a bit holiday soon for Easter! Celebrations!!!!!!!**

**It'sOnlyForever.x: Well like I say, Mrs Lovett knows how to pick the Mr Sensitives in this world, Albert and Mr T ;)**

**F8WUZL8: F8tey, you're absolutely right! I hate Victorian London for the exact reason that horrible *cough* Sweeney-ish guys could do this if they wanted. But Sweeney got his own served in this chapter, clearly!**

**linalove: Thanks for reviewing, as always! I'm really looking forward to reading some more of your fics this weekend. =)**

**AngelofDarkness1605: Any line to make you break into a smile and chip away at any bad moods/party times is worth it! Hopefully you'll find this chapter to your satisfaction =D**

**the-sadisticalovett-nutcase: Actually, I didn't get the headless idea from Alice, I just like the sound of "headless heads". But it seems to fit, and Helena loves her bloody women characters, doesn't she? The Red Queen was my favourite favourite character in the movie, by far. I love all her lines.**

**Sakura Katana: Yes, you know I can't see Mrs Lovett in yellow, try as I might. It seems more Lucy's colour. I've finally seen Alice, and although at times Johnny's voices had me scratching my head, I loved loved loved Helena's version of the Red Queen!**


	7. Mrs Lovett's Unwish

**A/N: The Final Chapter, at long last! I've had to give up my tea obsession, ahem, but hopefully you all won't. Happy reading!**

**EminentlyPractical: Don't worry, your Lucy-bashing is safe with me. I haven't really come across a Swucy worshipper in a while. So Lucy Bamford is very fitting =D Wow, I certainly feel loved now that I'm being stalked like Sweeney (he he, kidding, but it's great to know!) By the time you read this you'll have another chapter of the Promise Price sitting in front of you, so nothing to worry about there ;) Even though this story ends, I have about two others in my head that will be uploaded in the weeks to come. Thanks for reading ;)**

**It'sOnlyForever.x: Sigh, what should we do with Mrs Lovett? Tie her up, and make her watch dozens of cheesy Hollywood films on how to win a guy? No, that'll probably have the reverse effect....=D**

**linalove: Yep and Mr T is going to have another temper tantrum, poor thing! ;) Thanks for reading!**

**SakuraKatana: You're not repeating yourself, but somehow I probably have/am. The jabberwocky part scared me! I'd like to watch it again or buy it to watch the Red Queen's scenes. Um!**

**AngelofDarkness1605: Suitcase hunting, what fun! (I am being genuine there - I LOVE suitcases, if only for what they represent. Change. Excitement. I'll stop babbling now.) Thanks for taking the crazy story ride with me, as always. The storm has cleared, so I'm off for my walk.**

**F8WUZL8: I did the Judge-is-dead rhyme. Yes I do ;) Thankfully, Sweeney gets a dose of his own medicine for threatening to throw our beloved Mrs Lovett in the crazy house. Enjoy!**

**~Mrs Lovett's Un-wish~**

"When you think about it," Mrs Lovett reasoned, as she observed her beloved Mr Todd pace up and down the brightly light quarter of Fleet Street, "wishes are a lot like dreams. That is ter say, I always dreamed we wos married in me dreams, and now we is, so therefore the conclusion I ought ter make is that we is both dreamin', wouldn't you agree, Mr T?"

To which Mr Todd replied darkly: "I never dream, Mrs Lovett."

"Well," the daft woman chatted on about doilies and tea-cups and rose-scented table clothes while they went to the butcher's to pick a pound of beef. "Make that two pounds o' beef," she said nodding to the butcher, "since Judge Bamford looks to 'ave quite an appetite. She was quite pleased to discover that she was about five kilos thinner as her young self, with bright, plump lips, dancing eyes and a lovely striped pink outfit.

"Stop admiring yourself in the mirror, Mrs _Barker," _he said chokingly, while the butcher smiled on. He leant into the baker's ear, and whispered: "we have a murder to hatch."

Five minutes later, the handsome young couple returned arm-in-arm to their stately house on the corner of Fleet Street. Fortunately, no one else on Fleet Street could guess the evil going on upstairs in young Benjamin's head (or rather, Sweeney's head in Benjamin's body, as Mrs Lovett had sharply corrected him). If they had, they would have turned rapidly from the calm, contended mask of Ben's gleaming youthful face, and headed straight for the hills.

"I'll throttle him with my bare hands," said Sweeney, yanking the doorknob clean off their house.

"Sweeney, love, if we wanted ter kill 'im, I could just poison his stew. Why go ter all the trouble o' gettin' yer 'ands dirty?"

"Because it makes me feel alive!" he shrieked back at her, losing it for the first time in public.

Before he could go on about the satisfaction gained from slicing open Bamford's innards with any sharp implement he could get his hands on, the imposing entrance doors to the Judge's house opened, and there stood the very man, squat and grinning like an over-fed rat, arms open wide in what could only be interpreted as mock-generosity.

"Come in, neighbours, friends, companions!"

Mrs Lovett lifted a brow, and swiftly corrected it, remembering that she was supposed to embody a woman who was young, coquettish, and significantly less street-wise. "Thank you Mr Bamford," she smiled prettily, dangling the bag of wafting (but as yet uncooked) meat in his general direction.

"Have the servant collect it," Bamford said with his nose upturned, passing an appraising look up and down and around young Eleanor Lovett.

In some men, Sweeney realised with a barely repressed sneer, behaviour, as well as looks, rarely alters. "I'll wish him out of his perversion and gluttony," he whispered to Mrs Lovett.

Telling the truth is very often useless to very few and damaging to a great deal, so his newly wedded wife decided not to remind him that he had used up all his wishes. She did have _one _final wish left, but he was too absorbed in attempting to burn Bamford to ashes with one withering glance to consider the very reason they were in this pickle in the first place. "Curse magic teabags," Mrs Lovett tutted to herself, "they never bring you wot you want – not proper-like. If this was a good wish, or a good dream, Lucy would be dead."

And in the fashion of all good nightmares, Lucy Bamford was indeed, quite alive. "I'm expecting," was the first thing that popped out of Bamford's better half when they were all seated at the table, poking at smoked salmon and turkey breast and lamb cutlets and whatever other animals the voracious Bamford had sacrificed for his, ahem, _their _dinner.

"Wot you gonna call it then," Nellie said distastefully, "Beadle?"

"Geoffrey Thomas Archibald," Lucy replied seriously, placing a hand over her swollen stomach.

Sweeney leapt to his feet. "That," he said, pointing to her stomach, "is an abomination. It will grow up to be the spawn of the earth, and eat and snort itself into an early grave, just like its father. You should have married _me._ I wish you would marry me," he finished, hoping the magic teabag would do its magic.

She blinked, and did the first thing natural to an expectant mother. Mrs Bamford threw back her seat, and dove under the table for protection.

"I wasn't expecting this," said Bamford, and instinctively reached for his snuff box filled with the comforting white powder he was accustomed to sniffing in crisis, as well as dinner times, lunch times, and morning and before-bed-times.

"I wish," Mrs Lovett said, squeezing her eyes shut tight, "to un-wish all the wishes we ever made until this wish so that we'll be back in the year 1846, when Judge Turpin is still alive an' kicking, but after Signor Pirelli kicked the bucket, so ter speak, an' that forever more everyone I ever come across 'as ter do as I say, if I decide ter boss 'em around, especially Mr T, because he has an awful temper mind, an' although he won't like it at first, I'm sure that eventually when push comes ter shove he'll come round an' find it in 'is heart ter love me, since of course Lucy will still be the ole beggar woman, and Judge Turpin accidentally takes a trip down that Elevator to Hell, and Bamford the disgustin' grot he's always been, an' –"

Sweeney was for once so completely flabbergasted that he couldn't speak a word. He was flummoxed with rage. How was it that a woman as infuriatingly ignorant as Mrs Lovett could make a wish so utterly perfect as to be, well, perfect?

The trick, it seemed, was to not take a breath the entire time you made the wish. It was unfair – Mrs Lovett had scarcely taken a breath since he had returned from the colony. Except, that is, to sing.

The barber did the only thing he was able in the present situation. He picked the nearest hot cross bun from the dinner table, and lobbed it toward her open mouth. "Put a sock in it!"

"I shall be seeing you two out," said Bamford coldly, nodding to two henchmen lurking in the corridor.

"No need," shouted the baker over the loud gust that had suddenly blown through the library door and shook the entire foundations of the dining room.

"It's an earthquake!" shrieked Lucy, holding onto the ends of the table.

"Is that all you 'ave ter say, you silly woman?" Mrs Lovett scolded the blonde woman, unable to comprehend that she wouldn't at least have _attempted _to make eyes at Benjamin Barker from across the table.

"It's the wish!" Sweeney bellowed, as the wind tore everything to darkness, and clouded their vision.

*~*~*

They were back.

Back in oblivion. Back in hell.

"Back in paradise," Mrs Lovett said dreamily, turning circles round her familiar shop. "What a nice, cosy place it'll be ter live, when you've fixed it up."

"Me?" Sweeney went to seize her wrists, white with rage. He had only ever asked for happiness, not for this circus-parade of trick after hopeless trick! He picked up a spare pair of red-and-pick sock folded on the kitchen table, and flung them across the room. The socks collided with the cabinet, causing half the china plates to shatter to the ground.

"Don't you look at me like that, Mr T," she scolded warningly. "It ain't my fault I figured out the perfect wish. Now, while you're at it, you can pick up my socks. Over there, that's it. In the corner. And then get the broom, an' sweep up the mess you just made. Careless git. And while you're up, my dearest love, 'ow about you fetch me a cup of tea. Easy does it."

Sweeney Todd, the once fierce barber of Fleet Street, had no choice but to oblige.

**~The End~**


End file.
